THE TIME
TRAVELER’S WIFE
“I hate to be where she is not, when
she is not. And yet, I am always going, and she cannot follow.” – Henry
DeTamble, Prologue.
When asked to identify the themes of her debut novel, Audrey
Niffenegger stated that “mutants” was one of the more prominent ideas I her
writing. Upon hearing the word mutant, one automatically thinks of some
horrific deformed creature. I wouldn’t therefore, go as far as to call Henry
DeTamble a mutant, but his genetic mutation is definitely at the core of her
writing.
Niffenegger’s unusual concept of time travel is something
which is truly fascinating about The Time Traveler’s Wife, winner of the
Exclusive Books Boeke Prize in 2005 and the British Book Award for popular
fiction in 2006. Henry, a quirky librarian from Chicago, does not climb into a
time machine, tap in a date and whizz off into the future, nor does he use a
police phone box as a façade for his time travelling adventures. In fact there
is not a flux capacitor in sight. Instead, time travel is forced upon him due
to a genetic disorder, giving him no control over when he travels or where to.
H.g.Wells’ was perhaps ahead of his time when he wrote his novella The Time Machine, but the concept of
travelling time via machine has well past its use by date. Literature was ready
for this fresh new concept, and Niffenegger has certainly delivered.
Niffenegger’s novel not only entices the reader with this
original time-travel method, but her characterisation of the protagonists is
something which should be thoroughly applauded. Written from the perspectives of both Henry and his wife Clare, they are
illustrated with personal attributes and pop culture references, placing them
in a normality which is somewhat tainted by Henry’s genetic disorder.
Niffenegger manages to give these characters emotional depth and a powerful
tangibility, making them unique and realistic and therefore relatable to the
reader. The discourse of the novel follows the lives of Henry DeTamble, a
quirky librarian from Chicago, and his wife Clare Abshire, an animated artist
from a wealthy background.
One of the best
things about this book is the way Niggenegger interweaves the magic/tragic
outcomes of Henry’s time travelling with a grounded representation of American
day-to-day life. All Henry and Clare want is to live normal, domestic lives,
but the ever-changing time period of Henry’s presence makes this incredibly
difficult. Once Henry’s time-travel has corrupted their wishes to live
normality a few times, this is when the novel reaches its peak.
Much like Henry
repeating certain times in his life through time-travel, the book unfortunately
does the same thing, in a literal and an ideological sense. With a discourse
addressing the determinism VS free will argument thoroughly throughout, which
although is a fascinating concept, after a few hundred pages this beautifully
romantic novel begins to take the form of a psychology textbook, the reader
being the student with an A level Psychology exam the following week.
Niffenegger perhaps overindulges in this ideology, and the book at times
becomes almost tedious, and loses some personality.
Aside from the
repetitive nature of Henry’s scenario, the way the book is written should be a unique
selling point; however Niffenegger fails to make the most of this opportunity and
instead adds to the confusing nature of the intense themes. Written in a highly unconventional way and
turning the discourse on its head as Niffenegger does, corrupts the
chronological order of the story; a clever reflection of the chaos of Henry’s
time travelling. However, from an audience perspective, it further perplexes
the reading of this novel, and is sometimes hard to keep up with the
sci-fi-fantasy elements. In fact, when considering the interwoven fantasy of
this text, it is surprising that many of the domestic happenings, particular
through the character of Clare throughout the novel, are fairly relatable.
On this note, the
title is also something which needs to be addressed. When choosing you next
novel to read, critics and reviews aside, the only thing you can really go on
is the book’s cover, blurb and title. The static and relatively dry title of
Niffenegger’s debut is another thing about this novel which would have
benefitted with some more thought; I find it to be almost too absolute. The
title is also quite grating once you have read the book, when you look back and
realise it is almost irrelevant. This book does not focus around the life of a
time-travellers wife, but instead the time traveller himself. Although the book
delves a lot into the dynamics of their relationship, the title is somewhat
misleading. If the title were relevant, the book would follow the story from
just Clare’s point of view, but whenever we do switch to her viewpoint, her
thoughts always revolves around Henry. Long story short, this is not a book
about a time-traveller’s wife; this is a book about a time-traveller in which
we are allowed to view his life through the viewpoint of his wife as well as
his own. However, the content of this novel has a beautiful substance and such
gripping characterisation, that no deceptive title could ever take that away.
The book, although
released in 2003, came to much public attention again in 2009, when it was
released by New Line Cinema as a film. As is the case with most book-to-screen
adaptions, the film version of this powerful novel did the book no justice
whatsoever. The magic of Niffenegger’s imagery and fantastic character
development is lost through the notably average performances from Eric Bana and
Rachel McAdams. This is why, if you haven’t seen the film, I thoroughly
recommend you read the book before you watch it. Although confusing and
repetitive at times, once you’ve got your head around it and have appreciated the
beautiful substance of Clare and Henry’s multi-dimensional characters and their
passionate relationship, this makes a very good read. Fans of romantic novels
will especially enjoy this, particularly as the time-travel twist creates a
refreshing change from the romantic lovey-dovey romantic novel cliché.
By Kathryn Allen
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